Making Sense Of Service Time
The Major League Baseball Non-Waiver Trade Deadline is Tuesday, August 1st this year. What that means is that teams are free to trade players without having to offer them to the entire league via the waiver process up until 6:00 pm ET that evening.
With a month to go until the deadline, fans will be inundated with trade speculation and rumors. One term that will be tossed around is “controllable assets”, referring to players that still have team control of their salaries either through pre-arbitration or the arbitration process. Normally a player has 6 years of team control and that control is based on service time.
Service time is defined as each day a player is on the 26 man roster (including time on the Injured List). A player earns one year of service time once he is on the 26 man roster for 172 days. In the past teams were accused of manipulating the service time by holding prospects in the Minor Leagues for enough time as to not reach the 172 day threshold. This manipulation was a major source of contention with MLB super-agent Scott Boras. Boras frequently pontificated on the matter but his professorial method of doing so left many fans wondering what exactly it was that he said.
There hasn’t been much talk about service time manipulation since the new Collective Bargaining Agreement was instituted, ending the 2022 lockout. Part of that agreement will award teams an extra draft pick after the first round if their rookies wins the Rookie of the Year Award or finished top-three in the MVP or Cy Young voting.
It would appear that the new system is working as we have seen 143 MLB debuts in 2023 with 12 making their debut on Opening Day. Baltimore Orioles players who debuted in 2023 so far are Grayson Rodriguez, Joey Ortiz and Jordan Westburg.
A player qualifies for arbitration after 3 years of service time and free agency after 6 years of service time. Keeping a player below the 172 day threshold essentially gives teams a seventh year of control. During the pre-arbitration years, the team controls how much a player makes based on parameters spelled out in the CBA. During the arbitration years, the players salary is determined by an independent arbitrator after the teams submits an offer and the player makes a salary request; there is no meeting in the middle as the arbitrator chooses one or the other.
A fourth year of arbitration can be earned, thus eliminating one pre-arbitration year, if a player is considered a Super 2. All players with service time between 2 and 3 years ar eligible for Super 2 status in they are among the top 22% of service time among the pool of players in that group. The deadline to earn status changes year to year and depends on the number of players in the pool and their service time.
MLB players with more than 2 years and 128 days of service time at the end of the 2022 season were considered Super 2. Of the 23 Super 2 eligible players most notable were Randy Arozarena (Tampa Bay), Daulton Varsho (Toronto), Nick Madrigal (Cubs) and Brusdar Graterol (Dodgers).